Sonos Staff

The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 11, 2024
2256 replies
156698 views

Hey all, today we're sharing a message from our chief innovation officer, Nick Millington in the announcement here. Going forwards we will update that topic and we therefore close this one for further replies.

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.

Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.

Available now

To access these changes, check for updates in the iOS / Android app store to download the latest version of the Sonos app. Make sure your Sonos products are also up to date.

Last updated: Oct 28, 2024. See release notes.

The update has the following version numbers:

80.11.38 - iOS
80.11.32 - Android

In this update:

Support for the all-new Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4
Music library improvements*
Improvements to product setup
Improved performance when browsing content in Home and in Browse on Android
Improvements to multi-system support on iOS
Fixes for multiple settings including Bluetooth display, EQ, and Sub bonding on iOS
The ability to schedule System Updates on iOS
Continued Voiceover improvements on iOS

* Requires player update - 81.1-58074 (or higher)

You can also follow along with updates in this article:

New Sonos App Update!

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

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B

BVRBVR

Contributor I

One good thing that has come out of this whole sorry months-long episode is that Sonos have learned how to better release software, and have clearly moved from an old “waterfall” style “we have a single code branch and we will ship that code on day X and it had better work” to a more modern “continuous delivery” style of “ship small changes frequently” approach. Given all the broken/missing core features that should fall under either “bug fixes” or “finishing the UI one button at a time”, it is interesting that there haven’t been any updates for a while.

Other companies call this process “beta testing”, using a representative voluntary selection of customers. If SONOS has learned anything from this “sorry months-long episode” (well-said!), we won’t know until the next time they roll out a major system change.

Based on the reviews I’ve read on the App Store this “months-long episode” has months-long yet to go.

I don’t believe the app that was released in May was ready for Beta.

K

Kumar

The ‘queue management’ features likely got pushed down the list because of user requests that got quite a few of these things listed below introduced first (in general order of their roll-out). The below is summarised and so not an exhaustive list…

Accessibility/Voice Over features
Alarms
Network permissions fix
Support for Roam 2
Music Library improvements & Search
Improved Add product & connectivity for Sonos Boost
Added support for Sonos Ace
Sleep timer
Additional playback options - play next etc.
Device setup reliability
Improved battery consumption
Mute button
Numerical values for volume controls
Line out settings (Sonos Port)
Stereo/Mono (Amp)
SonosNet channel selection
Service reauthorisation (Android)
Fixed Android crash on startup
Option to forget a Sonos Household
Timezone settings
Line-in Autoplay (Android)
Multi-product setup for installers
Music library configuration & search
Account settings - Sonos Pro
Line-in Autoplay & compression settings
Sub Audio improvements with Amp
Improved volume control responsiveness
TV Audio Swap Beam (Gen 1), Beam (Gen 2), and Ray (Android & iOS)
S2 to S1 downgrade tool
Group volume improvements
Improvements to speech enhancement and night mode
Playback improvements (Android)
Ability to clear a room queue

Admirable effort, Ken. But you do realise that you are also pointing out that Sonos released an app with these features, almost all of which have been there for years, missing from the app in May 24!

Seeing this crime itemised as above shows the gravity of it. And the stupidity.

And you also say that this is not an exhaustive list 😱

Ken_Griffiths

Admirable effort, Ken. But you do realise that you are also pointing out that Sonos released an app with these features, almost all of which have been there for years, missing from the app in May 24!

Seeing this crime itemised as above shows the gravity of it. And the stupidity.

And you also say that this is not an exhaustive list 😱

Yes of course @Kumar - clearly though, these features have ‘always’ been present on the Sonos speakers themselves, just not accessible/controllable via the new Sonos App.

I think we all may realise aswell, that my summary list is taken from the Sonos updates release notes - I’m just showing that "queue management" is not yet in the Sonos App because of the above list of things mentioned - presumably the listed features were prioritised for the new App, perhaps either because some users shouted for them louder than others (music library search possibly being one example of that) and/or there were some ‘quick wins’ …and/or some features were seen as perhaps more important than ‘queue management’ - (Accessibility/Voice Over features perhaps being a good example there).

The decision taken to release the App without access to these features will always be down to Sonos and nothing I (or other users) can do about that now. Some chose to use other controllers and methods to regain access to the things missing in the new App.

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay. I think I’ve demonstrated that a good many times here in the community these past few months.

The new Sonos App certainly finds all my Sonos products and services and I’ve not encountered difficulties playing audio to any speaker, or group, even from a local NAS (SMBv2/3) shared library… that’s just my personal use-case of course, but family members and friends have had a similar experience too with the new App/Sonos system in their Homes.

K

Kumar

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that for some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay.

You will also agree that the Spence mea culpa in the investor call establishes that you and similar are the outliers, not the norm.

almazri

Prodigy I

Seeing this crime itemised as above shows the gravity of it. And the stupidity.

And you also say that this is not an exhaustive list 😱

The final list is gonna be huuuuge

Makes you wonder WTF they were doing since the s1/s2 split since the systems were almost feature parity. So little actual change. Comments over on Reddit are basically “if you want 16.1 just roll back to S1 cause they are basically the same.”

almazri

Prodigy I

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that for some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay.

Really! Didn’t even know this. 🤣

K

Kumar

Makes you wonder WTF they were doing since the s1/s2 split since the systems were almost feature parity. So little actual change

I will tell you what is the biggest thing they did in S2 that is missing in S1 - Hi Res, in a fashion.

After many years of saying - correctly in my opinion - that the science does not justify the need for Hi Res audio, except psychologically. Since I don’t have those psychological blinders on, I don't care that S1 does not do Hi Res.

Ken_Griffiths

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that for some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay.

You will also agree that the Spence mea culpa in the investor call establishes that you and similar are the outliers, not the norm.

I can’t answer that @Kumar as I have not seen the Sonos user-data to truly comment - I’m just commenting on my own experience and personal use here and what I’ve seen at the Homes of family and friends too.

I don’t think it’s all bad news as some might have us believe. I don’t however understand why we have a working Sonos App/System and some can’t even get their App to work at all?

I went away ‘glamping’ the other weekend and took with me two Roams and 4G/5G LTE router and that all worked fine, even on a mobile data sim connection for each and every day we were away - the App worked just fine to stream Amazon Music HD (mostly) to the two speakers (grouped, rather than paired).

The (attached) was recorded the other day showing my iPhone XR and what happens when I launch the new Sonos App on that older device - it finds all 25 speakers in 10 Sonos Rooms and loads up 18 Music Services (including the local NAS library) and populates the Home Screen in a matter of seconds.

Yes, there is still the missing ‘queue management’, but I can wait for that. There are also a couple of things I’d like to see optimised in the new App too, but it’s never left me in a position where I was not able to play audio on my chosen speaker(s).

B

BVRBVR

Contributor I

Admirable effort, Ken. But you do realise that you are also pointing out that Sonos released an app with these features, almost all of which have been there for years, missing from the app in May 24!

Seeing this crime itemised as above shows the gravity of it. And the stupidity.

And you also say that this is not an exhaustive list 😱

Yes of course @Kumar - clearly though, these features have ‘always’ been present on the Sonos speakers themselves, just not accessible/controllable via the new Sonos App.

I think we all may realise aswell, that my summary list is taken from the Sonos updates release notes - I’m just showing that "queue management" is not yet in the Sonos App because of the above list of things mentioned - presumably the listed features were prioritised for the new App, perhaps either because some users shouted for them louder than others (music library search possibly being one example of that) and/or there were some ‘quick wins’ …and/or some features were seen as perhaps more important than ‘queue management’ - (Accessibility/Voice Over features perhaps being a good example there).

The decision taken to release the App without access to these features will always be down to Sonos and nothing I (or other users) can do about that now. Some chose to use other controllers and methods to regain access to the things missing in the new App.

Although, I will just say that perhaps we shouldn’t forget aswell, that some users (myself included) have found that even without these things, the new Sonos App has always still worked okay. I think I’ve demonstrated that a good many times here in the community these past few months.

The new Sonos App certainly finds all my Sonos products and services and I’ve not encountered difficulties playing audio to any speaker, or group, even from a local NAS (SMBv2/3) shared library… that’s just my personal use-case of course, but family members and friends have had a similar experience too with the new App/Sonos system in their Homes.

I think I can safely say that features existing on hardware, but that are inaccessible to the end user are considered by the end user as “missing features.”

It seems many of the complaints I read on line are concerning poor ability of the new app to implement features.

I will continue to use a 3rd party controller until I’m confident the Sonos controller is up to par.

K

Kumar

I can’t answer that @Kumar as I have not seen the Sonos user-data to truly comment - I’m just commenting on my own experience and personal use here and what I’ve seen at the Homes of family and friends too.

I don’t think it’s all bad news as some might have us believe.

Spence disagrees with you, Ken, vehemently. Read all he has confessed to in the investor call in the first week of August, it is a laundry list of serious consequences.

And then see what he is spouting on Reddit thereafter. In conversations with members on that forum.

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